The Picnic

1

At five AM, and with a vague sensation of déjà vu we finally make the big lurch to Circular Quay. Something feels wrong. I begin to have doubts about the purity of my quest; surely we were going off script here? No, I reassure myself, this too is part of the film. And if I want to watch something else, well, too bad: we've lost the remote so it's either get up and walk to the television like some kind of fucking poor person or double down on popcorn and put the 3D glasses back on. To this end a drink is in order, but unfortunately not at hand. Cursing the bouncer who kicked us out of that Irish pub an hour ago, I stumble around the quay. It had, ostensibly, been for gesturing too much. Maybe my lack of apparent joy at no longer living in the mother country was bringing everybody down. Probably it was the fact I was cackling to myself and sweating aggressively. That fucker just didn't get the joke.

In retrospect, neither did I, but to me it's always been a given that at least one person in a large establishment has to be moving their eyebrows oddly at nothing and sucking down jagerbombs, by himself, for reasons we trust he explain later. Someone has to be that guy. No, Scruffy Murphy's Hotel and Irish Pub was not a venue friendly to the concept of Having a Quiet Drink - and I was more than willing to meet them halfway on the quiet thing. Much better was the overpriced but empty twenty-four hour cafe, restaurant and bar called City Extra on the quay, where I asked for and received bacon, eggs, coffee, beer and a lighter.

This beer pushed me past some kind of spiritual limit. This beer got me. Yes, it understood me, accepted me for who I was and validated my lifestyle. I sat back and reflected on the multitudes of things that made me great. It only took a quick glance in any direction to confirm what I had always suspected to be true: I was undoubtedly a genius. Not just anyone can go to a cafe. Oh no. This was a precision manoeuvre on a mission almost spiritual. I was very, very clever. I was going to get on a ferry. Post-ferry, I was going to go to sleep. On a beach.

Yes.

The ultimate, long-term plan was to attend some sort of picnic-style “let’s-all-have-a-catch-up” type-thing that was happening later, one which I had previously decided wasn't worth the time I could spend, say, carving a swastika into my balls. Then at around two in the morning I suffered a change of heart: I was already awake, drunk and had nothing better to do, so why not mumble gibberish at people whom I'd not seen for over a year, and didn't even know particularly well to begin with? The choices I make at two in the morning are universally poor. I've heard it said, however - possibly third hand, and almost certainly originating from Bear Grylls - that in a desperate, life-or-death survival situation such as this, indecision is the real killer. So at least a choice had been made, even if consideration had only been given to the dramatic appeal of the available options, instead of their pragmatism.

And standing around, waiting for the first ferry in the limbo of a drunken six AM, undoubtedly has dramatic appeal coming out of the wazoo. It makes a man slightly nauseous. At six twenty sharp, the ferry casts off and I sit at the front, enjoying the pleasing rumbling of the engines and swell of the harbour, watching my window reflection against the lights of the north shore fade slowly into daylight. Overcast, wet, grey daylight, from which there can be no escape save for the embrace of vacuum sealed interiors and maybe a towel. This, I realise, buggers my plans to have a quick nap on the beach in order to freshen up and restore my energy for the long day of being drunk that I require for proper effect. Does anyone sell amphetamines before breakfast, and do they do it in Manly? Could I somehow force them to?

Only one way to find out. Plenty of time to formulate a strategy on this, the greatest journey in the history of nautical public transport. Charon himself would have balked at such an undertaking. Not I.  Various other classical references launch themselves across my brain only to die out in the temporal lobe as I forget the character's names, or what they were supposed to have done, or how I could possibly relate it to my current business of being on a boat. I hold on to, and congratulate myself for, the river Styx thing though. That was good. Mental note: mention it later, and often.

“Don’t fuck with me, matey,” I mumble to myself, “I’m like a big old ravenous fuckin’… hydra?”

Kill the body and the head will sprout legs and crawl under a desk.

The ferry pulls in at Manly. What the fuck am I doing in Manly? Ah, yes: continuing my journey. Stay in character, keep back story and motivations in mind at all times. Life is little more than the narrative with which one chooses to identify, after all.  And this narrative, surely, must be the best on offer. Why else would I identify with it so strongly? My presence on the wharf, bleary eyed among the closed Starbucks and crappy souvenir shops, just feels so right. This place is my spiritual home.

“Hey man, is it cool if I crash for a couple hours in your little booth thingy?”

He good-naturedly tells me to fuck off and continues setting up his shop. Classic. It’s around this time that I think to check my phone, and discover that the picnic has been cancelled for the rain. My crisis is immediate and highly existential; my life made purposeless. I feel somewhat ripped off and want my ticket back. Should have seen it coming. The foreshadowing was all there, not at all subtle either. Dark skies. End times. Tear gas canisters burst in through the windows: we clutch at our throats yelling “save us!” and the universe angrily punches us in the face. It’s every man for himself, now that the context’s been altered and Tyler Durden revealed to be your dad. What, then, to do in manly at ten to seven in the morning?

I stand in the middle of the empty road, arms outstretched like Jesus or a man being frisked, and pose this question to the grey sky. It pisses on me, half-heartedly. I recall that it’s not too far from here to the sea.

2

"Fuck you! You think you're better than me, you gigantic fuck? Nuke the whales! Destroy squids! We're coming for you, dickhead! This is just the beginning! James Cameron knows your secrets! You ain't shit!"

For the second time in as many weeks, I spend the early hours of the morning drunk, very far from home and yelling obscenities at the ocean. It's a lifestyle thing. The sea calls to some people; it calls me a dickhead and up with that I will not put. For me, going to the beach inevitably results in ungraceful sweating, complaining and panic attacks of a weekend-ruining nature. I can't cope with anything more than ankle deep immersion without experiencing a kind of reverse ego-death: my sense of self becomes rigidly defined in definition to an infinite, uncontrollable external environment. The ocean - and there is only one - is the biggest single thing on the planet, and to be in it is terrifying. Vertigo in four dimensions.

So naturally I am drawn to be near it, because my existential nemesis is the only real nemesis I have, and I like insulting people. Near, say, just out of reach of most waves. Near enough so that it can hear me shouting and see me waving my arms about and throwing cigarettes at it, demanding full recompense for indignities suffered. Reparations. Refundments.

Revenge.

A few early morning surfers look at me strangely. I nod at them in solidarity and pride. They go where I cannot, to perform vital reconnaissance and get tans. God's speed.

Despite going to great pains to stand firmly in the “Beach” part of the beach, I find myself en-dampened. What the fuck is this? Light rain! Shit! We’re being flanked, the sky’s in on it too! As I run off to find a suitable bunker or toilet block in which to take cover, I remember my comrades-in-wetsuits and turn back, only to discover that it’s too late: they’re already in the sea’s merciless grip, tossed about by the maybe half meter of swell and pinned down by this pretentious mist. I can only assume they died heroic but senseless deaths. I remember what they told us in year four about the water cycle – if only I’d listened, this could have all been prevented.

“A pox on the shithead what invented evaporation!”

Some joggers jog past.

“And on you, for exercising in public. You can jog but you can’t hide! I’ll find you with my telepathy if I have to! Ah, these psionic gains, bro…”

All of life’s problems originate in the brain. Maybe I can get it removed. Give me ten inches of garden hose and a vacuum cleaner, I’ll do it myself. Memories, some of them even mine, overtake me: my private brain care specialist shoots spinal fluid in the skin, Deep Blue beats Lance Armstrong in the full contact monopoly, at age three I am walking along Bronte beach when something grabs at me from the bushes…

With all my plans to sleep, drink and attend informal reunions ruined by the bastard weather, I catch the ferry back after a scant half hour. It's about half past seven and the transition from drunken craze to sleep-deprived-delirium is almost complete now; the loud conversation I have with a variety of friends, all of whom are non-present, presumably bewilders and frightens the other passengers. None of them seem very keen to make friends with me, which I attribute less to my own blatant lunacy and instead to upper class prudishness. I assume they're upper class. I mean, who else regularly rides about on ferries at this time of day? If I was rich, that's what I'd do. Sober, no less.

I look around, hoping to find a brother in arms, or at least someone who looked willing to listen to the gibberish I want to tell them. The secrets of the universe unfold around me, begging to be related. It was all about lamps, see... Something is wrong. It's the same film but the genre has changed, from a sort of stoner comedy into an experimental student gizmo shot on a budget of about twenty dollars in which nothing happens. It's not even a depressing tragedy, it's just three or four hours of straight nihilism. Why am I watching this. Where is the fucking remote? All my electric running out out

Someone is singing.

"I saw the worst bands of my generation... applied by magic marker to drywall"

I think it's me. How long did I sit stood standing on this ferry for? Destroy squids. Yeah. Fuck 'em! At seven-fifty AM, and with a vague sensation of déjà vu, we narrowly make the big jump from boat to dry land. Something is wrong. Didn’t we do this routine before? Surely we’re recycling script here?

This too is part of the film.

Back in the quay. Christ, will this horrible cycle never end? What's the point of going somewhere and doing a thing? You'll only have to leave and do something else. Climb the steps up to the train station.

"Excuse me!"

"uh, yes?"

"whendoesthetraincomeplease?"

The woman looks at the display, conveniently located directly in front of me.

"… Five minutes."

I close my eyes and whisper "thank you" with what I intend as palpable relief but probably comes off as palpable erotic satisfaction. Don’t flatter yourself, station wench. Just tell me when the train comes.

As usual, I find the correct platform at central station in time to watch the train leave without me. An hour twenty minute wait, none of which is pleasant or even memorable. The rising sun is noticeable only by the extent to which the clouds obscure it – which they do, totally. A man sitting beside me remarks that it’s a cold day. He’s right; although the temperature is acceptable, if not ideal, it is indeed a very cold day. Shit, it’s a cold world. He is prophet and truth teller; why is it that such people always speak in riddles and complaints?

“Look old man, sir, I want answers. I did all the right stuff, right, and spent more money than I can afford to spend, all to keep my drunk rolling until it was time to go to this thing, but then it was cancelled. So what was the point of me doing all that stuff?! Why the fuck did I go to Manly, on a fucking ferry no less, if not as part of an epic adventure?”

He gets up and moves to another seat. Cold world. What’s the point of grandiose rhetorical questions in such an uncaring universe? Finally the train rolls in. I climb aboard and try to pass out but sleep won’t come. I consider, briefly, suicide, but dismiss it as too stressful, and I’m no longer sure if I can stand. I stare at the seat in front of me. It offers no interesting revelations or thoughts. It’s just green, and it continues to be green, and I continue to stare at it like a zombie. Finally, we leave the station and the camera pulls back for the inevitable long shot of the train climbing up the mountain into the distance, over which the credits roll until I'm invisible on the horizon and a few rays of light make it through the thick clouds. 

Although it's an electric train, I imagine they'll add smoke post-production for extra effect.